Herk_Man
Contributor
My two sons, 16 and 14, recently got certified and we did a dive vacation together with my wife, also recently certified, in Bonaire. One thing I found while diving with my family, due to their lack of experience, was that I devoted a lot more of my attention (compared to my dives with experienced divers in the past) to them. While I've always been a very conscientious buddy, I was much more concerned with monitoring them than I would otherwise be.
My question stems from the difficulty (not sure if that is the best word to describe how I actually felt) with keeping track of them. I had them flanking me on either side and they were generally trailing me by about half a body length. We enjoy a leisurely pace on dives but we do move and I found myself constantly having to pause and look back to make sure they were doing well. Not once did I ever look back and not find them but I don't like to make assumptions while diving. Too much can go wrong too quickly to stop paying attention.
So is there a better way to orient ourselves to make keeping track of each other easier? To caveat that question, we did try some other configurations. But any time they were farther up where I could see them, they said they had difficulty being able to see me well enough to know when I stopped or changed directions. And I also frequently passed the lead responsibilities off to them so they could get some experience leading dives. They expressed the same issues with keeping track of followers that I did.
All polite responses welcome. :cool2:
My question stems from the difficulty (not sure if that is the best word to describe how I actually felt) with keeping track of them. I had them flanking me on either side and they were generally trailing me by about half a body length. We enjoy a leisurely pace on dives but we do move and I found myself constantly having to pause and look back to make sure they were doing well. Not once did I ever look back and not find them but I don't like to make assumptions while diving. Too much can go wrong too quickly to stop paying attention.
So is there a better way to orient ourselves to make keeping track of each other easier? To caveat that question, we did try some other configurations. But any time they were farther up where I could see them, they said they had difficulty being able to see me well enough to know when I stopped or changed directions. And I also frequently passed the lead responsibilities off to them so they could get some experience leading dives. They expressed the same issues with keeping track of followers that I did.
All polite responses welcome. :cool2: